This afternoon, Conergy’s innovative “Lasal del Varador” grid parity project on the rooftop of a Spanish organic restaurant on Barcelona’s beach front carried the day in the “Projects” category at the Intersolar Award prize-giving ceremony. The Intersolar Award is presented every year on the occasion of the Intersolar trade fair held on the Munich exhibition site – in 2013 from 19 to 21 June. This year, the panel of experts awarded the prize for the first time in the “Projects” category for particularly innovative solar power solutions. Conergy emerged victorious from this premiere.

Given rising costs for conventionally-generated power from the grid and simultaneously falling system prices for photovoltaic solutions, in many regions of Europe solar power is already competitive for the end-user, and grid parity is thus achieved. With its innovative scheme in the now prize-winning “Lasal del Varador” pilot project, Conergy has developed a new business model that points to future-oriented solutions in this changing market: the Conergy solar power plant dispenses completely with feed-in tariffs. The restaurant owners consume all the electricity from the rooftop plant themselves, thus reducing their electricity bill by roughly one fifth. With this scheme, Conergy broke new ground in solar power terms in the autumn of 2012.

“In many cases, solar power is already more cost-effective for house-owners and businesses than power from the grid. This offers great potential when it comes to cutting electricity costs”, said Conergy Board Member Alexander Gorski. “For the end-user, the power of the future simply comes from the socket without anyone having to worry about it. That makes new demands on us as market participants. We have responded to this with our new business models. On the one hand, it means that the solar plant has to be tailored to match the quantity of electricity used and the user’s electricity consumption patterns. On the other hand, however, services and a carefree full-service package from a single source are gaining increasingly in importance. Our ‘Lasal del Varador’ project combines these requirements quite innovatively, and that is why we are very proud to have received this award as a major industry commendation.”

In its worldwide “Start it!” campaign, Conergy is developing, business models for the grid parity market on a worldwide basis. These take into account local conditions of every market. Since the “Lasal del Varador” project, in Spain alone a total of 56 such Conergy plants with a total capacity of about 1 megawatt have come into existence in collaboration with partners. These plants produce about 1,450 megawatt hours per year and hence enough electricity to supply about 420 households with non-subsidized solar power. In Australia, the USA and South Africa, too, the PV solutions and service provider has already accomplished numerous projects involving no state feed-in tariffs whatsoever.